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Hesper Valley Railway

Heritage railways in GermanyRailway lines in North Rhine-Westphalia
Hespertalbahn01
Hespertalbahn01

The Hesper Valley Railway (German: Hespertalbahn) is a German heritage line running steam locomotive services between Kupferdreh Old Station and Haus Scheppen on the Baldeneysee lake in Essen. As a narrow gauge wagonway it linked opened up Erzgruben in 1867, and the Pörtingsiepen mine in 1877. The upgrading of part of the line to standard gauge followed in 1918. In 1973 the line was closed. In June 1975 the Hesper Valley Railway Preservation Society (Verein zur Erhaltung der Hespertalbahn) saved the route and has since operated it as a heritage railway. The top speed on the line is 15 km/h. The Hesper Valley Railway is part of the Route der Industriekultur, route 12 (The Ruhr — past and present) and route 15 (Railways in the area).

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Hesper Valley Railway (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Hesper Valley Railway
Hespertal, Essen Heidhausen (Stadtbezirk IX)

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Wikipedia: Hesper Valley RailwayContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.378333333333 ° E 7.0383333333333 °
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Address

ehem. evangelische Gemeindeschule

Hespertal 26
45239 Essen, Heidhausen (Stadtbezirk IX)
North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
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Hespertalbahn01
Hespertalbahn01
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Old Kupferdreh station
Old Kupferdreh station

Old Kupferdreh station (German: Alter Bahnhof Kupferdreh) was built by the Prussian state railways in the Essen district of Kupferdreh in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and opened in 1898 on the Prince William Railway. The station is close to the start of the first German railway, which was opened on 20 September 1831 by the Deil Valley Railway Company to Nierenhof. The entrance building stands near the junction of the former Ruhr Valley Railway (Ruhrtalbahn) that ran from there along the north bank of the Ruhr and the Baldeneysee reservoir to Ruhrort. This building was opened on 27 July 1898. The station was designed in the form of a two-story brick house with decorative brick work, windows in different sizes and an arched entrance built with ochre sandstone. The stucco decoration in the first class waiting room, which was renovated for its current use as a large dining room, is notable. The front platform, from which day the historic Hesper Valley Railway (Hespertalbahn) begins its journey, belonged formerly to the Ruhr Valley Railway, which crossed the Ruhr about 200 metres to the south. The Hesper Valley Railway or Pörtingsiepen Railway (Pörtingsiepenbahn) branched off and ran along the south bank of the Ruhr. A horse-hauled narrow-gauge railway was opened in the Hesper Valley in 1857, serving the mines in the Velbert area. The line was later connected to the Pörtingsiepen colliery in Essen-Fischlaken and as a result the line from Kupferdreh to Hesperbrück was converted to standard gauge in 1877. A remaining narrow gauge section to Hefel was closed in 1918. There were also passenger services for the mine workforce between 1927 and the closure of the Pörtingsiepen colliery in 1973. In 1975, the Association for the Preservation of Hesper Valley Railway (Verein zur Erhaltung der Hespertalbahn e. V.) rescued the line from demolition. The trains of the line S 9 of the Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn run past the old building without stopping to stop at the new Essen-Kupferdreh station.